Beached
by AGENT Kuma-chan
Summary: She dreams of the sea a little less each day. It doesn't make the pain any easier. -Chisaki, Tsumugu, Akari and the five years.


**Title:** Beached

**Prompt:** Dec 10 / the unbearable price of earthly delights

**Character/Pairing:** Chisaki, Tsumugu, Akari

**A/N:** I almost dropped this series until second season started and bang, everything became amazing. Still a little too long, but amazing. I really adore how they did Tsumugu and Chisaki and ahhh, I can't imagine 5 years like that. D:

**Summary: **She dreams of the sea a little less each day. It doesn't make the pain any easier.

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1.

The water is colder—not unbearable, but different. Chisaki swims slowly through the sea, the empty, empty sea.

"There should be something here," she whispers to herself. It's quiet, unnaturally so. Manaka should be laughing near her, Hikari yelling.

And Kaname, Kaname should be sharing a secret smile with her, amused with the pair in front of her.

But there's only her now. Only her in the entire ocean and her home is nowhere to be found. This is the path she took every day, this route she swum so many times she can see it in her sleep.

A wall hits her, a current pushing her back to shore.

"No!" she screams, pushing against it, pushing her way back. The current's strong, stronger than her, and after struggling for ten minutes, she lets it push her away.

She surfaces next to the dock and holds onto it limply. "No," she cries, gripping the wood.

Footsteps approach her and she almost slips into the water in surprise. Tsumugu stares down at her before sitting on the edge. Just how he knew just where to find her, she doesn't know. "No luck?"

"No," she answers miserably, the only word she knows now. No, she can't find Shishio. No, she can't find her friends.

No, she isn't happy, not in the least. Never again.

Her last few months feel like a dream, a nightmare. She spends her nights crying, her days swimming.

And still she can't wake up.

"Shall we go home?" Tsugmu asks and she can feel the tears falling again.

Home is a place she can't find anymore.

2.

Akari pats the bump on her belly, less miserably than the last time Chisaki saw her. She smiles, a little bitterly—at least one of them is finding happiness.

"You know, you should visit sometime," she says, checking out Chisaki's groceries. "Aside from your weekly shopping, I don't see you at all."

"I...I can't." Chisaki stutters. "Hikari...his stuff...it's..." Overbearing. His presence in that house, as short as it was, lingers still.

"..." Akari pauses, her expression darkening. "Yeah...I get it. We're...we're thinking of moving."

Chisaki grabs onto it, this change of topic. "When?"

"In a month or two. Our house—we need a bigger place. And...Hikari..." Akari frowns again, and Chisaki reaches forward, grabbing the older woman's hand.

Squeezing, she nods. "Yeah, I get it."

Akari smiles, softly, sadly, and Chisaki has to turn away. And here too, there's too much Hikari—she's watched him for too long to not see him in his sister.

3.

"We're going fishing," Tsumug says, watching her.

He does that a lot. As though he's waiting for something to break, waiting for a reaction that never comes. She wants to shake him-she's done crying. Done feeling sad. Done with everything.

But she doesn't think that's the answer he wants. His grandfather does the same thing, but it's easier to read him than it is his grandson.

"See you later, then," she says, smiling. It doesn't ease his expression and she stops. Maybe she can do nothing to stop their worries.

"Will you come?" he asks.

"No." She looks out the window, over the cliff. The sea beckons her, coldly, and she turns away again. "I can't."

Tsugmu stares at her again. "You can't run forever."

"Or what?" The sea has already rejected her, barring her path home. There's nothing left to hurt her and childishly, she wants to reject it back.

Tsugumu says nothing and she gets up. "I have nowhere to run anyways."

4.

"What else are you going to take from me?" she yells. In front of her, invisible, is the wall. "I have nothing, nothing to give you!"

She can still hear Grandfather's gasps as he collapsed. The bright white of the hospital blinds her and her despair turns to something darker.

Angry, she swims at the wall, trying to push through it once more. The current repels her, strong as ever, forcing her to shore. The rocky shoreline cuts her as she climbs up, exhausted.

The water looks so calm from here. Not stormy at all and it's unfair. There should be whirlpools and hurricanes, monstrous waves the size of buldings.

Something to match the turmoil in her heart. Sitting down, she rests her head on her knees.

"Why can't you just take me too?"

It doesn't surprise her anymore when Tsugmu appears behind her, a coat in his hands. Draping it around her shoulders, he then sits next to her quietly.

"How is he?" she asks finally.

"He'll be fine with some rest." Tsugmu replies. "He's not going anywhere."

"That's good." She stares at the water now, at the moon reflecting from the surface. The water's colder now, and she knows the thin ice already forming will only get thicker.

"So you can't go anywhere either."

She stares at him and then laughs. "It's not like I can." Wiping the tears from her eyes, she smiles weakly. "But thanks."

5.

It takes until her fourth year to approach the sea again. To even think of it.

(and the pain, the pain is a little less. She stops dreaming of the sea, of the fish outside her bedroom. The warm currents and sea weed forests.

Their voices grow mute, Manaka's laugh nothing more than the chimes in a breeze. She can't remember Kaname's face, can't remember Hikari's strut, and she wonders if this is part of growing up. If loss is something that can't be avoided, no matter how much you want to.

If change is something you can't fight.

She stops dreaming, but the pain, the pain doesn't leave.

It just grows duller and duller.)

6.

"Hikari's back," Tsugumu says, not looking at her. She doesn't notice that till later.

"Hikari?"

Somewhere in her, the tide starts to move.


End file.
